Meal planning is important in our family because if I didn’t post a menu, half of our family would eat ALL of the groceries within the first month! And while I don’t want them to starve, the food has to last the entire month since I only shop once per month. If you missed the last post with a month’s worth of menu ideas, you can read it here. 

Planning a grocery trip with meal planning in mind doesn’t have to be hard or time-consuming. These are 5 quick, simple ways to save on your next grocery trip.

Here’s a glance at my system and a few tips to remember:

1. Eat your berries, grapes, lettuce/salad mixes, and spinach first.  These will go bad the quickest so eat them during week one and two of your month long shopping trip.
2. Save longer lasting produce for the last half of the month.  Apples. Green bananas. Kiwis. Carrots. Potatoes.
3. Freeze, freeze, freeze.  We only use whole milk for Hubs and the twinkies so I leave out enough for the first two weeks and freeze the rest. At the beginning of the week, I take out a gallon or two to thaw. Hubs says it tastes a little sweeter but he’ll “take one for the team” and deal with it and the kids don’t care what their milk tastes like.
4. Support your local farmers.  The produce on my grocery list is nowhere near enough produce for our family, but we have the luxury of eating fresh produce daily from our farm. If you don’t have a garden but do live near a farm, BUY FROM THEM! The fruits and veggies will taste amazing!!!
5. Buy seasonal.  We LOVE to stock up on seasonal produce when it’s at its peak, eat as much as we can and then freeze or can the rest to eat throughout the year. Again, you’ll have amazing tasting produce all year long for great affordable prices.

Here is what our last Costco trip looked like (and I don’t mean everyone watching our crazy parade!) and I’ve included a FREE printable grocery list!

On paper, it doesn’t look like much of a list for a family of eight, but it certainly fills up our van and two overflowing carts!

Ninety-five percent of our shopping is done at Costco and the rest is specialty ordered online at Amazon or Trim Healthy Mama (protein powder, stevia, almond flour) or picked up at Target (like my favorite Mission Low Carb Whole Wheat tortillas!). If you have a large family or a baby, I highly recommend joining a warehouse-type grocery store to save big bucks on groceries and diapers! I had NO idea how many diapers we would go through with TWINS but it felt like tons and we made our membership money back my first official trip. If you don’t have a large family or babies in diapers, you may still save money just not as much.

Unless there is a specialty item I need, I stick to the basic staples and keep them stocked in our pantry or freezer. Things like meat, fresh and frozen produce, canned vegetables or fruit, oats, flour, brown rice, toiletries, and diapers/wipes. As long as we have a variety in the pantry, I’ve learned to create a wide menu.

We have a system for these staples. All of the fresh produce is eaten within the first two weeks while we save the canned and frozen for the last two weeks. This helps us stretch the groceries without multiple trips to the store, inevitably blowing our budget. I also try to buy the greenest bananas I find so they ripen up during the second week of the month.

These are just a few simple tips to save big on your grocery bill. We’ll tackle more budget-friendly ideas next month!

I hope these tips save you time, energy, and money on your next grocery shopping trip. I’d love to know your savings secrets and you can share those in the comment section below.

Click here to download your FREE Printable Shopping List